Friday, January 25, 2013

PDF Signature, sign PDF Documents

The mypdfsignature tool
adds your transparent signature stamp to PDF documents. A transparent signature stamp is
your physical signature in an electronic format that you can place on the
signature line or anywhere on a PDF, Word or other electronic documents.
It’s transparent in that the contents of the document can be seen behind the
signature.

The below Figure
1 represents a signature on a white background which hides the content behind
the signature, while Figure 2 represents a transparent signature above the
content.

Normally any format documents needs to be signed
physically for it to have value, this requires the document to be emailed,
printed and signed, moreover if the signed document needs to be sent to someone
else, then it needs to be scanned into a document before being sent. Transparent signature helps us to prevent this
by adding a transparent signature to the document and sending it right away. This
saves time, printer ink and paper ultimately saving a
few trees from being cut for paper.

Digital signature

Digital signature is another way of signing documents. A digital signature is a
file with an algorithm that produces a key for identification purposes and time
stamps the document when it is signed. When a recipient opens the
document and double clicks the signature, a window opens stating that the
document hasn’t changed since its creation.

Digital signatures are implemented using cryptographic keys. Implementing a
proper digtal signature required 3 cryptographic algorithms, the first one for
key generation, second one for signing and the third one for sign
verification.

Digital Signature Vs Transparent Signature

A digital signature is quite a bit more complicated and the function is not
included in the two free and most commonly used PDF readers, Adobe Reader and
Apple Preview.

Implementing a proper digital signature is quite a complex process when
compared to transparent signatures.